Financialization and the rentier income share – evidence from the USA and Germany

During the past two decades, there has been a shift of significance from the real to the financial sector. In the course of (financial) globalization, measures of liberalization and deregulation have contributed to a strengthening of financial capital. The concept of shareholder value orientation has become more powerful, capital income has increased tremendously, while real wages have stagnated. Most industrial countries have experienced a decline in the share of labor income. Based on a review of empirics and literature, this paper seeks to determine who gained from the fall in the labor share of income in the USA and Germany, respectively. If financialization is indeed responsible for the decline, rentiers should be the beneficiaries. In order to identify the relevant effects, the profit share of the two countries under observation is split between the share of retained earnings and the share of net property income (= rentiers’ income) using a modification of the approach chosen by Epstein and Jayadev (2005 Epstein, G. and Jayadev, A. 2005. “The rise of rentier incomes in OECD countries: Financialization, central bank policy and labor solidarity”. In Financialization and the world economy, Edited by: Epstein, G. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.  [Google Scholar]). The evidence presented shows that the development of the rentier income share indeed corresponds quite well with the stages of development of financialization in the two different countries: in the US, where the important shift towards financialization occurred in the early 1980s, the rentiers’ share of income shows a corresponding leap upwards exactly at that time and remains on a higher level until the end of the observation period. In Germany, the process of financialization started much later – in the beginning of the 1990s – and followed a much more gradual transition, which is perfectly mirrored by the development of income shares: from the 1990s onwards, the rentiers’ income share gradually increased over time.     

The Warden Attitude: An Investigation of the Value of Interaction with Everyday Wildlife

Using a discrete choice experiment, we elicit valuations of engagement with ‘everyday wildlife’ through feeding garden birds. We find that bird-feeding is primarily but not exclusively motivated by the direct consumption value of interaction with wildlife. The implicit valuations given to different species suggest that people prefer birds that have aesthetic appeal and that evoke human feelings of protectiveness. These findings suggest that people derive wellbeing by adopting a warden-like role towards ‘their’ wildlife. We test for external validity by conducting a hedonic analysis of sales of bird food. We discuss some policy implications of the existence of warden attitudes.     

Cost–benefit analysis – evaluation model of cloud computing deployment for use in companies

The use of cloud computing services appears to offer significant cost advantages. The most frequently mentioned advantages include investment and operating costs saving, high elasticity of services as well as increased flexibility of certain business processes. On the other hand, the adoption of cloud computing in enterprise environments is non-trivial. Understanding the organizational benefits and drawbacks is far from straightforward. The adoption of cloud computing results in a considerable amount of organizational change that will affect employees. The aim of this contribution is to conduct and describe the evaluation model of cloud computing that would be applicable in business practice for evaluating the effectiveness of such investments. The target users of this model are primarily people in companies with decision-making power in the investment field. The appropriate starting point based on the multi-criteria evaluation was the cost–benefit analysis (CBA) approach for cloud computing (CC). A multi-method approach (systematic literature review, analysis of real cloud computing services, expert interview, case study) was applied in order to develop and evaluate the formal model. We found that our model fits the practical requirements and supports decision-making in cloud computing.     

Open Innovation in Practice: Goal Complementarity and Closed NPD Networks to Explain Differences in Innovation Performance for SMEs in the Medical Devices Sector

Cooperation with other organizations increases the innovation performance of organization, especially for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) as they encounter liabilities of “smallness” (e.g., limited financial resources, and manpower). In the medical devices sector, collaboration with external partners for NPD becomes increasingly important due to the complexity of the products and the development process. About 80% of companies in this sector are SMEs. These companies operate in a highly regulated sector, which affects the organization of the external network required for the new product development (NPD) process. SMEs are practicing extensively open innovation activities, but in practice face a number of barriers in trying to apply open innovation. This paper examines multiple network characteristics simultaneously in relation to innovation performance and thereby aligns with and builds further on configuration theory. Configuration theory posits that for each set of network characteristics, there exists an ideal set of organizational characteristics that yields superior performance. In this research, the systems approach to fit is used. Fit is high to the extent that an organization is similar to an ideal profile along multiple dimensions. This ideal profile represents the network profile that the 15% highest performing companies use. It is argued that the smaller the distance between the ideal profile and the network profile that is used, the higher the performance. The objective of this research is (1) to examine the relation between the ideal profile and innovation performance and (2) to examine which organization of the network profile is related to high innovation performance. Quantitative survey data (n = 60, response rate 61.9%) form the core of this research. The quantitative results are clarified and have been triangulated with qualitative interview data (n = 50). Our findings suggest the presence of an “ideal” NPD network profile (in terms of goal complementarity, resource complementarity, fairness trust, reliability trust, and network position strength): the more a company's NPD network profile differs from this ideal profile, the lower the innovation performance. In addition, the results of our study indicate that the NPD network profiles of successful and less successful SMEs in the medical devices sector significantly differ in terms of “goal complementarity,” while this is less the case for trust and resource complementarity labeled distinctive by previous research. Finally, results show that a relatively closed, focused, and consistent “business‐like” NPD networking approach, which is characterized by result orientation and professionalism, is related to high innovation performance. It is recommended that SMEs in the medical devices sector aiming to distinguish themselves from competitors in terms of innovation performance focus on goal complementarity while adopting such a business‐like attitude toward their NPD network partners.     

Wage Determination in Rural Russia: A Stochastic Frontier Model

This article examines wages in rural Russia after the first decade of economic transition using data from a nationally representative household survey. The stochastic frontier analysis reveals that Russia's rural labour markets place high value on human capital. The overall level of rural wages, however, is very low, with the median wage 10% below the official subsistence level. The gender pay gap severely depresses women's wages. A woman with the same skills as a man is paid only 47% of the man's wage. Rural workers who receive income from their personal plots accept significantly lower wages. Private firms pay considerably higher wages than state or collectively owned firms, but account only for one fifth of rural workers.     

Use of social networks in banking: a study in the Czech Republic

Social networks are becoming more and more important nowadays. Apart from regular users of the Internet, companies have started to use them in their business. Their potential is that a great number of people, future clients of big companies, use them on a daily basis. Thus, the aim of this article is to analyse the use of social networks in the banking sector of the Czech Republic, particularly with respect to customer support. The methods of this study include common data analysis and professional analysis. Common data analysis consists of the evaluation of public data from social networks and web pages of the selected bank institutions. The professional analysis is conducted by paid professional analytical tools that provide more detailed statistics. The findings of the study show that social networks are now well-established tools for the Czech banks to attract both their current and potential clients. The Czech banks seem to care about their clients by trying to meet their needs. Customer care and services provided, however, differ with type of bank.     

Demenz-Nurse kann Beratung und Demenztests übernehmen

Unterstützung für ?rzte - Der Umgang mit Menschen, die an der Alzheimer-Erkrankung leiden, bereitet nicht nur Angeh?rigen und Pflegenden Probleme, sondern auch ?rzten. Das zeigt eine gro?e Umfrage [1], in der sich Haus- und Fach?rzte zu ihren Motivationen und Barrieren in der Alzheimer-Therapie ge?u?ert haben. Nach den Ergebnissen k?nnen jedoch professionell Pflegende und Arzthelferinnen viel zur Verbesserung der Versorgung beitragen.